Field of the Disclosure
The technology of the disclosure relates generally to Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) interactive sessions.
Technical Background
Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) is an ongoing effort to develop industry standards for integrating real-time communications functionality into web clients, such as web browsers, to enable direct interaction with other web clients. This real-time communications functionality is accessible by web developers via standard markup tags, such as those provided by version 5 of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML5), and client-side scripting Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) such as JavaScript APIs. More information regarding WebRTC may be found in “WebRTC: APIs and RTCWEB Protocols of the HTML5 Real-Time Web,” by Alan B. Johnston and Daniel C. Burnett, 2nd Edition (2013 Digital Codex LLC), which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.
WebRTC provides built-in capabilities for establishing real-time video, audio, and/or data streams in both point-to-point interactive sessions and multi-party interactive sessions. The WebRTC standards are currently under joint development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Information on the current state of WebRTC standards can be found at, e.g., http://www.w3c.org and http://www/ietf.org.
To establish a WebRTC interactive flow (e.g., a real-time video, audio, and/or data exchange), two WebRTC clients may retrieve WebRTC-enabled web applications, such as HTML5/JavaScript web applications, from a web application server. Through the web applications, the two WebRTC clients then engage in dialogue for initiating a peer connection over which the WebRTC interactive flow will pass. The peer connection initiation dialogue includes any data transmitted between the two WebRTC clients and/or the web application server facilitating the establishment of the WebRTC interactive flow. As non-limiting examples, the peer connection initiation dialogue may include WebRTC session description objects, HTTP header data, certificates, cryptographic keys, and/or network routing data. The peer connection initiation dialogue may include a media negotiation to communicate and reach an agreement on parameters that define characteristics of the interactive session.
In some embodiments, the media negotiation may be implemented via a WebRTC offer/answer exchange. A WebRTC offer/answer exchange typically occurs via a secure network connection such as a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) connection or a Secure WebSockets connection. In a WebRTC offer/answer exchange, a first WebRTC client on a sender computing device sends an “offer” to a second WebRTC client on a recipient computing device. The offer includes a WebRTC session description object that specifies media types and capabilities that the first WebRTC client supports and prefers for use in the WebRTC interactive flow. The second WebRTC client then responds with a WebRTC session description object “answer” that indicates which of the offered media types and capabilities are supported and acceptable by the second WebRTC client for the WebRTC interactive flow. It is to be understood that the peer connection initiation dialogue may employ mechanisms other than a WebRTC offer/answer exchange to establish a WebRTC interactive flow between WebRTC endpoints.
Once the peer connection initiation dialogue is complete, the WebRTC clients may then establish a direct peer connection with one another, and may begin an exchange of media or data packets transporting real-time communications. The peer connection between the WebRTC clients typically employs the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) to transport real-time media flows, and may utilize various other protocols for real-time data interchange.
Some environments may require that records of all communication interactions, including WebRTC interactive flows, be maintained for security, legal, usage bill back, and/or archival purposes. For instance, enterprise policies may dictate that records documenting all WebRTC interactive flows transmitted across an enterprise network are to be kept. However, because the peer connection initiation dialogue and the peer connection itself may take place over secure network connections or may be otherwise encrypted, data in the peer connection initiation dialogue and the WebRTC interactive flow that could offer insight into the WebRTC interactive flow may be opaque to the enterprise. Thus, the enterprise may lack the ability to generate records of a WebRTC interactive flow beyond the most elemental data regarding the network traffic constituting the WebRTC interactive flow. Moreover, the use of a central network element between endpoints to monitor the WebRTC interactive flow may not be practicable or desirable due to the topology of a typical WebRTC interactive flow. As non-limiting examples, the WebRTC interactive flow may pass directly from one endpoint to the other, thus bypassing the central network element.